Alex and the Song

Surprising Spaces. 

We'll call him Alex. He was kind of a bugger. A kid who made it clear that he didn't really like my homeroom class (which, to be fair, I didn't either). He was the kid who rearranged all my push pins, and stole rubber bands so he could launch them across the room in a finger gun. He was the kid who groaned at my choice in background instrumental music. He was the kid who right after I instructed, "you can do origami, but no paper airplanes, please" made a paper airplane and threw it at my forehead.  He and his friends would say things in Spanish, testing whether or not they could get away with their own secret language under the teacher's nose. 

 (I luckily squelched that pretty early when one kid said to Alex, "Tienes alguna comida? Tengo hambre" to which I replied, "You guys know you can't eat in here" they both gasped, looked at each other wide-eyed, and never tried anything like that again. I didn't tell them the only other phrase I could've caught them on is Donde esta la biblioteca"). 

One day he nods his head in the direction of the piano. "Yo, Mrs. Corkin....You know how to play that thing?" I smile. He's not in one of my music classes. 

"Ya, Alex, I can play that thing."

 A challenge in his tone, "For real? Show me. What can you play??"

"How about happy birthday?"

"ok, ok, cool." 

I play the familiar ditty on the piano and he clicks his teeth and scoffs on his way out the door--unimpressed. He's made fun of me for my taste in music before, nothing new. 

Over the next few days, he starts to kind of wander into my class during passing periods. Just stopping by. Sometimes just sitting in the back while I teach another class for a few minutes until I notice him, "Alex, are you supposed to be somewhere else?" Then he bounces out the door. Undeterred, he keeps coming back. I think he kind of likes hanging out in my classroom. Which is weird, because I thought he hated my classroom.

One day, he pokes his head in and sheepishly says, "Hey, yo, Mrs. Corkin. You think you could teach me how to play happy birthday?"

I grin. 

"I think I probably could."

For four days straight, he wanders in, en route to somewhere else, sits down at the piano, and learns two or three notes of the sequence at a time. 

He then proudly walks into the middle of my other classes, sits down at the piano, shows off his skills playing Happy Birthday with the confidence of Billy Joel. 

Before I usher him out, because he is actually supposed to be in another class.

 

Like most experiences with 6 and 7th graders, I'm not entirely sure what the moral of the story is. 

Children's opinion of you is not reflected in their behavior. Shooting hand sanitizer across the counter, or reading books upside-down, to get out of reading, is not necessarily a middle finger. 

I assumed Alex thought I was lame, but somewhere along the line, I created the space he felt comfortable wandering into, escaping to, learning from, growing in. 

The songs I think are basic, are still awesome. He was so proud of himself for learning that song. 

 I realized he's probably never played any piano except for mine. 

I hope he caught the music bug and wants to be a pianist. I hope he remembers the first song he ever learned was happy birthday. And that he learned it from his frazzled 6th grade homeroom teacher, Mrs. Corkin.